Spark Hire Software

Spark Hire is a cloud-based video interviewing platform for HR departments and staffing professionals with options for one-way pre-recorded interviews or live interviews. Other features include branding customization, video interviewing ROI analytics, collaboration tools to comment, rate and share interviews with others on the hiring team and open-invite interviews that can be implemented in a variety of outlets, including job boards and social networks.

Users can also add custom welcome videos for candidates, tag interviews for searching capabilities and handle applicant rejection management all within the Spark Hire platform. All interviews (live or pre-recorded) can be played back at any time to review a candidate’s responses. Pricing options are also flexible, with separate, customizable packages for small, medium and enterprise-level firms.

Spark Hire also includes a mobile app for iOS and Android devices so that applicants can do their interviews on the go.

Great value for video interviewing!

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Pros

When we were reviewing video interview platforms, I was surprised by how much fluctuation in price there was. Some of the other vendors had a few more "bells & whistles", but they were, for the most part, unnecessary - and the price they were charging was significantly higher than Spark Hire. We've used Spark Hire for 2 years now, and they have certainly met our needs for a video interview platform, and at a great price! They also integrate with several ATS platforms, which is convenient. The support team is very responsive and helpful, and my account rep is fantastic.

Cons

The only thing I wish I could add is an option to save a filter, so I can always start on the page with just my interviews, or just active jobs/open interviews. Other than that, I can't think of any "cons".

Review Source

Mel from FluentStream Technologies
Specialty: Telecommunications

March 2015

March 2015

Spark Hire <3

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Likes Best

I just began doing my own interviews this year, and Spark Hire has made the process so much more fun. It really gives me a chance to get to know someone before ever even meeting them. It saves me time, which I don't have a lot of, and effort. It just makes things so much easier!

Likes Least

There's really not much I don't like. Sometimes the video playback doesn't work, but that could very well be something on my end. Overall, it's a solid product.

Recommendations

Just be honest! I'm not exactly an expert on evaluations of software products, so I unfortunately can't provide much insight.

Tiffany from Havas Edge
Specialty: Advertising

February 2015

February 2015

Great interview tool

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Likes Best

It's very easy to use, share, and provide feedback. The mobile app works very well, too, and candidates love it. Customer service was excellent!

Likes Least

It's difficult to convince candidates how easy it is to use. The sort feature could be improved in terms of candidate name, job listing, etc.

Recommendations

Use this for client- or employee-facing roles that require polished presentation. Back office, developers, or accountants will not give you the best results.

Bradford from ADCAP
Specialty: Telecommunications

February 2015

February 2015

Easy to use and exceptional customer service

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Likes Best

Their customer service. Most HR technologies require me to be a go-between and try to troubleshoot tickets. If one of my candidates is having problems, Spark Hire calls them directly (yes, calls them! not emails them... such a great service!).

Likes Least

There is no screen sharing option. But honestly I don't even need that for 99% of the candidates I'm interviewing.

Recommendations

Figure out what is most important. To me when I looked at price, ease of use (both on the HR side and the candidate side) and customer service, Spark Hire blew everyone else out of the water!

Josh from FluentStream Technologies
Specialty: Telecommunications

February 2015

February 2015

A major improvement to our hiring process!

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First off, the concept of a video interview platform is absolutely brilliant. Everything is intuitive and the platform has several flexible options for holding the video interview. We prefer the one-way interview because it allows us to get a glimpse of many different candidates for a position. I love that that Spark Hire is very proactive with their customer interactions, and even bumped us up to an upgraded plan so we can try out other features.

Likes Least

There have been a couple bugs in the interface here and there, but it has never impacted the full functionality and Spark Hire appears to resolve them quickly. To me, small bugs like that are a sign of a smart company that is always developing on their software platform to make it more functional to their customers.

Recommendations

Go for it! It's an affordable way to help your company find better talent.

Excellent source of help for professional hiring

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Tremendously eased the interview and selection process to hire for positions in a growing practice. Thank you!

Pros

Recommended by hiring professional, was never disappointed. Helped tremendously to weed out individuals in the hiring process, very modern and customizable for each position posted. Exceptional customer care and attention.

Cons

Certainly Useful, but Not as Personal

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Overall, this is a great and efficient app for HR to speed up the interview process. I can completely see why departments choose to use this system. The best part is simply the amount of applicants that can be reviewed in such a short amount of time. In the past, you were limited by time and resources, but this software gets rid of those issues. It is also helpful to be able to go back and review an interview again, which obviously isn't possible with an in person interview outside out notes.

Cons

The main negative I have with this is that it takes the personal interaction out of the initial interview process. Obviously, after initial screening, you would then move into phone or in person interviews, but you would just hate for someone to slip through the cracks because of an awkward video interview.

Review Source: Capterra

October 2018

October 2018

Spark Hire is the Ultimate Choice for Interviewing Candidates Virtually

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Pros

I prefer to screen the applicants through video conference calls before having them meet me in person. I can do this in the comforts of my own office and be able to select who will be called for the next round of interviews. I found Spark Hire Talent to be very user-friendly and helpful while I navigated through their site. I had to interview applicants from other countries and it was very convenient for me to set-up the call. After the process is done, I can rate the candidates and include my feedback which is viewable by the managers who want to interview them. The whole process was smooth.

Cons

The quality of the sound can get choppy at times which can be irritating if you’re in a middle of obtaining an answer from the applicant and she needs to repeat herself. Not sure if the connection is from my end or the applicant’s.

Review Source: Capterra

October 2018

October 2018

Ideal Software for Your Video Conference Calls

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Pros

Although this program was designed to interview applicants, I use it to interview my clients that can’t meet with me in person. I basically want to get a feel of their needs and preferences and I believe that body language is important. No need to worry about a complicated software. It’s quite straightforward and simple to use. The video and audio is clear and I can complete my video sessions in a timely manner. This software allows you to write notes about your clients so you can keep track about your conversations. I’m so glad I found this software online.

Cons

The price is quite steep and they charge by a number of people you talk to. I think they should just make a package for basic and unlimited calls so it won’t be too costly.

Review Source: Capterra

October 2018

October 2018

User friendly and easy to use!

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Pros

You can use spark hire for a video screening for canidates. I love the simplicity of spark hire. Screening candidates has never been this easy. You will be able to see the gesture of the candidates while they are answering as if it was a face to face interview. Good thing about it, is that you'll able to disguish those who are really interested and motivated.

Cons

Not that much negative to say! I think it will be best if they'll make it easy to access on mobile phones

Review Source: Capterra

September 2018

September 2018

Spark Hire - One Way Video Interviewing

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Clients enjoy 'meeting' candidates before deciding who to invite to interview. Candidates appreciate that it saves time and cost of fighting traffic and attending interviews when a video interview can save time.

Pros

The ability to schedule candidates to take one-way video interviews in their own time.

Cons

The standard email that is sent to candidates is very basic, but love that we can customize it.

Review Source: Capterra

Julie from University of PennsylvaniaNumber of employees: 10,000+ employeesEmployees number: 10,000+ employees

Pros

I appreciate the having the various interview options (e.g. open) - I specifically prefer the one-way interview option.

Cons

Not being able to update the candidate's information on the backend e.g. name is mispelled or email needs to change when you open a candidate's profile.

Review Source: Capterra

September 2018

September 2018

We love Spark Hire!

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I am extremely happy with the Spark Hire product.

Pros

Working in HR for a large organization with multiple locations makes it difficult at times to coordinate the interview process. But instead of me providing my feedback, I'd like to share some of the comments I have received from various departments in our organization regarding the Spark Hire video interviewing platform.

"I thought the process was pretty revealing actually. As the viewer it was interesting to see how they handled the format-their comfort level with answering the questions within the time limit, and if they looked in the camera (or not)."

"I found that Spark Hire was very convenient to use and gave me a way to do an initial interview of a large number of candidates in an efficient manner. Since I tend to have large candidate pools, the videos were able to give me an initial assessment to determine who I wanted to do in person interviews with. Particularly effective when dealing with out of area applicants."

"Excellent tool that allowed us to consider more candidates. Previously we had to select 7 or less and coordinate a group schedule to interview face to face. Spark hire allowed us to consider 28 candidates remotely and at each interview panel members pace."

"I really liked using the Spark Hire Video system as it allowed me to review the candidates on my own schedule. I could also review the videos a second or third time while I was reviewing the resumes and applications. "

Cons

Again, I'd like to share feedback I have received from hiring managers. Keep in mind some of these may just be viewer/reviewer error.

"A good candidate might get screened out if they are not as tech savvy as other candidates. That might be fine for a tech job but not a relevant for others."

"What I didn’t like was the review options within Spark. It was essentially a STAR ranking system with comments. Once submitted, you cannot go back and make edits."

"I wish the view of all the videos showed me some kind of summary of how I ranked each person (and even the comments I wrote)."

Game Changer

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We are a commercial cleaning company and need to constantly hire - previously this was a huge headache and time waste each week and many of the candidates would not show up at all or would not be good candidates for the position when they did. With Spark Hire we get to screen the candidates before spending the time to go and meet someone - we can see the quality of the candidate and know what to expect before meeting them in person. Additionally, we have found the no-show rate has dropped almost 100% because we find that those who are willing to go through our other steps, culminating in taking the time to film a video interview are typically better candidates overall and more committed to getting a job.

Pros

We LOVE Spark Hire for the amount of time and headache it has saved us. Being able to review candidate interviews at our convenience as well as see the candidates before determining whether or not to meet them in person is huge.

Cons

There's really not anything I dislike about the software - it meets all of my needs at this time.

Its a valuable that we have used to help us get to the best candidates quicker.

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I love how it helps screen candidates and allows us to quickly get a read on the people applying. The support has been really good as well. Rep has been very helpful in getting us what we need and giving good advice.

Awesome Customer Service and Easy to use

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Using SparkHire has allowed my Operations Team a faster way to get through 2nd interviews.
Being able to tailor make the questions is great!
My Representative is always super helpful! He always gets back with me in a timely manner, and has offered suggestions as well.

Pros

It’s so easy to use-it’s self explanatory.

Cons

Nothing to list in this section. Our Operations and Recruiting Team love it!

Applicants are shy

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Many applicants that seemed to have excellent potential didn't do the video interview. We began thinking that we were missing good hirs because they were shy so we have taken this stage out of our hiring process.

Pros

Works as advertised. It is great screening applicants in this format. We just meet with the ones that kill their 1 way video interview

A Very Useful Product

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A Flight Controller interview takes up the time of anywhere between 2-6 of NASA's mission-critical personnel. Before using this software we would schedule interviews based solely on resumes and pre-screens, which cannot give you enough information. While this does add a step, it helps immensely with our ability to submit qualified candidates.

Pros

It is amazing to be able to judge a person communication skills before taking up upper managements time in a lengthy interview. We mainly use this software for Flight Controllers at NASA's Mission Control Center. Interviewing with a camera, especially for the first time, can be stressful. This is something Flight Controllers must be able to handle and adapt to. While a person can have an amazing resume, it doesn't truly represent the candidate's communication skills.

Cons

The only issue I have is having to ask the candidate to upload their own resume. I would like to be able to add a resume to a video so management has easy access.

Sparkhire - We don't hire anyone without it!

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Our overall experience with Sparkhire has been awesome! We literally use this as our first line in our interview process. Some people won't even click on the link, or do but never complete it...it let's us know those are probably not individuals that would be a great fit for our company. Then those that do complete the Sparkhire, we're able to see them and evaluate from a high level if they'll be a good fit, prior to sitting down with them face to face! I wouldn't use anything else to do our hiring! It's been a huge life/time saver for us!

Pros

We use Sparkhire to interview EVERYONE of our employees. This is the first thing they have to do! It's incredibly easy to use and I love the format!

Cons

I wish it were user friendly from my phone. I find it difficult to use trying to flip from one question to the other on my phone.

Spark Hire is the best thing we have done for our in-house recruiting efforts

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We no longer waste time phone-screening candidates. Every resume we receive is acknowledged with a request to complete spark hire. The completion rate is around 23% but with the number of applicants we have, 23% is more than enough.

Pros

Spark Hire is seriously THE BEST thing we've done for our in house recruiting efforts. It has allowed us to dramatically increase the number of candidates we are able to thoroughly screen while simultaneously reducing the time and money associated with doing so. Since adding Spark Hire in December, we've increased our candidate review rate by +24%. Cost per applicant has been reduced 9% and cost per hire is down 13%. On top of that, their customer service is incredible.

Cons

Very few negatives. Occasionally we've had bugs - which are quickly corrected. And we've come up with a few ideas that could improve ease of use but nothing that has dramatically impacted our overall experience.

Review Source: Capterra

August 2018

August 2018

Review

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Great customer service and technical support.

Pros

The ease of being able to screen candidates in large amounts for cultural fits in the company.

Cons

The inability to brand different groups internally. We can only have one company brand, but internally many of our departments function with their own unique identity.

Spark Hire Review

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I have used Spark Hire for nearly 3 years. They have been outstanding in everyway!

Pros

Spark Hire allows me to quickly and confidently review candidates as well as share with hiring managers. We don't spend time in interviews without having confidence that we will get ROI on the time spent.

Cons

N/A. I researched all of Spark Hire's competitors and I made the decision to use Spark Hire.